Proximate and Amino Acid Analysis of Processed Chicken Feather Meal for Fish Feed Ingredient

Currently, it is critical to turn byproducts in the surrounding environment into valuable resources. These various kinds of materials can be easily found, such as chicken feathers from chicken slaughterhouses. This investigated was pointed to hydrolyze and ferment chicken feathers into feather meal and determine the nutritional content of feather meal. Chicken feathers were obtained from Rumah Pemotongan Ayam Berbah, Sleman. Several methods for chicken feather processing were conducted by probiotic, chloride acid, and natrium hydroxide. The next step was to analyze the nutrition value of chicken feather meal by proximate, amino acids (Liquid Chromatography Mass Spectrometry) analysis. The research results showed that fermentation of chicken feather meal by using probiotic improved the nutritional value namely protein content was 78.18% and essential amino acids content (isoleucine was 14,763.26 µg/g, histidine was 12,043.825 µg/g, glycine was 326.51 µg/g, methionine was 138.17 µg/g, arginine was 33,321.63 µg/g, phenylalanine was 22,815.65 µg/g and leucine was 44,511.41 µg/g). This research can be used as a basis for using fermented chicken feathers as a cheap and nutritious alternative fish feed ingredient.